my debt free diary.....time to make a change for myself and my boys!!!!

samboss0306

hi all
i have finally decided to stop lurking and ask for help!! im currently a sahm so we are living on only one wage plus about £30 child benefit a week. my partner is a self employed electrician so his wages differ every week. we have 2 young boys age 5 and 3. i have decided to try and sort our money problems now as we are currently living in a 2 bed house but have found a 3 bed through a mutual exchange in about 4 weeks ( we are housing association tenants hoping to buy our new house when money gets sorted) so the rent will be a bit more then we are used to but at least my boys wont have to share a bedroom and the house is a lot bigger which we need.
anyway basically what we owe is:
asda credit card:£1581.18 (0% for nine months starting today)
egg credit card: £411.67 (about 30% apr!!!)
hsbc loan 1: £1450 (£120.19 a month)
car finance: £5459 (£139 a month )
ctc overpayment: £1117.08 (£50.00 a month 0%)
choice catalogue: £140.56 (i pay about £25.00 a month 0%)
family loan: not sure how much is left on this but we pay £70.00 a month.

so basically we are in debt by over £10,000 :eek:

does any one have any advice as to what debt to start clearing first? i really want to clear the egg card first as the interst they are charging is scary!! the asda credit card is in my name bu my oh is an additional card holder and the egg card is soley in his name, is it possible to add the egg card debt to the asda card and still get 0% for nine months? hope that makes sense!!!
any help is very much appreciated. thanx.
xx

Horace

Hi and welcome.

Please post your Statement of Affairs using this handy calculator: https://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html (there is a button marked MSE if you click on it, you can formulate the SOA and then copy and paste it here). Note down the APRs of your loans and list all income and outgoings. If you do this, we will get a better idea of where money is being spent and suggest ways of reducing your debt.

Normally, we would say pay off the card with the highest interest rate first.

laura2481

Horace wrote: »

Hi and welcome.

Please post your Statement of Affairs using this handy calculator: www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html (there is a button marked MSE if you click on it, you can formulate the SOA and then copy and paste it here). Note down the APRs of your loans and list all income and outgoings. If you do this, we will get a better idea of where money is being spent and suggest ways of reducing your debt.

Normally, we would say pay off the card with the highest interest rate first.

Darn, I was just gonna say that!!
Welcome to the boards, if you post us an SOA we will be happy to give advice and find ways to save you some money to pay off your debts

laura2481

samboss0306 wrote: »

egg credit card: £411.67 (about 30% apr!!!)

Eeeek! Get rid of this ASAP! 30%! :eek:

TurnaroundSue

Go to www.whatsthecost.com and you can snowball. Basically, snowballing is where you pay minimum payments on all your other debts except for one (which is usually the one with the highest interest), then you throw all your spare money at that debt. Once that is repaid you move to the next debt, adding amount from paid off debt onto the the minimum payment of next debt and so on, and so on. It will also give you your debt free date which will really help to keep you focused.

Good luck and well done for finding this wonderful site. You will get loads of help and advice from the great people who frequent it. Don't be afraid to ask any questions, no matter how silly you think they are - there will always be someone on here who will be able to point you in the right direction/advise the best course of action.

laura2481

And the catalogue too- is it really O%? or only for a little while? You want it gone anyway, and as it is one of the smallest ones, it shouldn't be too over facing to concentrate on that to start with..

laura2481

Oh, and if you explained the situation to your family could you take a few months off of repaying them in order to hammer other debts for a short time? Just an idea...

Tixy

Hi Samboss

You might well be able to balance transfer egg to asda providing you have enough credit on your asda card. Phone asda up tomorrow and ask. Otherwise definately sounds like egg is the card to make any overpayments to. Once you've got all the information for your SOA we will show you how to snowball.Which will tell you what order to pay debts off in and the financial difference this can make. (You will need to know if there are any penalties for overpaying the loans).

Have you checked you are getting all that you are entitled to in terms of child benefit, tax credits and any other benefits? Look at the entitledto website to check.

samboss0306

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 0
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1800
Benefits................................ 30
Other income............................ 150
Total monthly income.................... 1980
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured loan repayments................. 120.19
Hire Purchase (HP) repayments........... 139
Rent.................................... 478
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 110
Electricity............................. 52
Gas..................................... 45
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 14
Telephone (land line)................... 19
Mobile phone............................ 90
TV Licence.............................. 10
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 21
Internet Services....................... 12.5
Groceries etc. ......................... 220
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 40
Road tax................................ 9.58
Car Insurance........................... 58
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 10
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 105
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 15
Haircuts................................ 5
Entertainment........................... 30
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1623.27

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 5500
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 5500

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 0........(0)........0
Secured Debt.................. 2695.....(120.19)...12
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 6000.....(139)......8
Total secured & HP debts...... 8695......-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
asda cc........................1581.18...35.87.....0
egg cc.........................411.67....22.54.....30.9
ctc overpayment................1117.08...50........0
Total unsecured debts..........3109.93...108.41....-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,980
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,623.27
Available for debt repayments........... 356.73
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 108.41
Amount left after debt repayments....... 248.32
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 5,500
Total HP & Secured debt................. -8,695
Total Unsecured debt.................... -3,109.93
Net Assets.............................. -304.93
Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using IE browser.
i hope this is ok. i know the mobiles are expensive i pay £20.00 for mine a month and the rest is my oh phone bill!! he actually recieved his bill today for the month and it was £99 :eek: but will not change tariffs and i am fed up with arguing with him over money and bills

i dont know if i have added all the debts properly, and i have based my partners income around what he earns on average but sometimes it can be more or alot less!!!! let me know if i have done this wrong and i will have another go as this is all new to me!!!!

samboss0306

yes the catalogue is 0% on anything i buy for 24 or 52 weeks any time i buy something if you know what i mean!! my partner deals with the family loan as it is owed to his mum but has not paid her since xmas and it is due again next week so thats 3x £70.00 we owe her now!!!

thanx for your replies. xx

chevalier

probably the easiest things to target is your food spending. there are always wasy to shave money here. ie hubby taking packups eg. or soupe in a flask. downshifting a brand. Also there are lots of cheap recipes on the money saving oldstyle forum

hope that helps and look for wards to your SOA
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